Teresa Wilton Harmon

Teresa’s representative matters during her over 25 years of practice include:

• Representing financial institutions and commercial paper conduits in over $50 billion in student loan financing transactions
• Representing financial institutions and borrowers in secured and unsecured lending facilities
• Handling workouts and defaults in credit facilities and securitization transactions
• Advising financial market participants on legal issues relating to securities lending, repurchase agreements and cleared transactions
• Representing electric utilities in stranded cost and storm recovery securitizations
• Analyzing complex lien perfection and enforcement issues in a broad range of financial transactions and portfolio acquisitions
• Structuring custodial agreements and escrow arrangements to safeguard collateral
• Counseling clients on the applicability of the insolvency laws, the Dodd-Frank Act, the Orderly Liquidation Authority and bank capital rules to financial transactions and collateral management including netting arrangements and bankruptcy remoteness
• Advising clients on loan documentation and procedural steps required to comply with Article 9 of the UCC
• Briefing UCC issues in Federal Courts of Appeals
• Counseling financial institutions on lender liability risks and risk management techniques
• Advising a digital securities exchange and a virtual currency exchange on commercial law tools to address legal and practical challenges 
• Counseling clients on electronic signatures, electronic promissory notes and electronic chattel paper

As managing partner of Sidley’s Chicago office, Teresa leads a team of 1,300 professionals, including over 450 lawyers. Teresa is committed to continuing Sidley’s 155-year track record of excellence and civic engagement. Teresa’s civic and professional leadership roles include:

• The Executives’ Club of Chicago Board of Directors
• The Chicago Network 
• Leadership Greater Chicago Board of Directors and Daniel Burnham Fellow
• United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Campaign Cabinet Vice Chair
• Chicago Corporate Coalition
• National Immigrant Justice Center Human Rights Award Committee
• Vice President, a member of the Executive Committee, and a member of the Council of the American Law Institute
• Fellow and Regent of the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers. Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Past chair of the Chicago Bar Association Commercial Finance and Transactions Committee. Past chair of the American Bar Association Securitization and Derivatives Subcommittee. 
• Member of the Permanent Editorial Board for the Uniform Commercial Code
• Active member of the Study Committee on the UCC and Emerging Technologies. Teresa was also the ALI liaison to the Uniform Law Commission Drafting Committee for its proposed Home Foreclosure Procedures Act, was an ALI member of the Uniform Law Commission Drafting Committee for pending revisions to the UCC related to electronic mortgage notes and is an ALI member of the Uniform Law Commission UCC and Emerging Technologies Study Committee.

Teresa has exhibited her love of teaching as a lecturer in Law at The University of Chicago Law School, where she taught professional responsibility and legal ethics and The University of Illinois College of Law, where she taught secured transactions. She is a frequent speaker at client training programs and at legal and industry conferences, including those sponsored by the Illinois Bankers Association, the American Bar Association, ALI-CLE, PLI, the Illinois State Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association. Teresa co-chairs the Firm’s New Business Committee and serves on the Firm’s UCC Committee, Legal Opinions Committee and Office of General Counsel.

Teresa is a member of the Board of Visitors of the Culverhouse College of Commerce at The University of Alabama. Teresa has been a board member or active volunteer in several community organizations, including the Field Associates of the Field Museum, the Young Leaders Fund of the Chicago Community Trust, Sarah’s Inn, the Oak Park/River Forest Infant Welfare Society and the Girl Scouts.